


A Lost Joy

by Anonymous



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 17:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Fingolfin dies, but the halls of the dead aren't the halls of the dead anymore.





	A Lost Joy

When Fingolfin awoke in the Halls of Mandos, there was only darkness to greet him. He couldn't see anything, not even whatever surface his ghostly feet stood on. It took him a while to become absolutely certain that he could indeed stand, that the unseen ground would hold him. His first steps were wobbly, his arms flailing to find something to guide him or something to hold on to, like a fly dropped inside a bottle full of pitch-black ink. 

He had expected gloom, even murk, but not this. Not this unfathomable blackness that closed in on him like a wall and was as hard to wade through as a bog. 

The silence too was uncanny, unnerving. The stillness. He couldn't possibly be the only spirit there.

Thoughts buzzed in his mind, amplified by the lack of everything else. At one point he thought maybe he wasn't in the Halls, and this was the Void, the Everlasting Darkness Fëanor had called upon himself in his ill-omened Oath. He had sworn to follow his brother, though he had not lived up to that promise. He had sworn to follow Fëanor but he had tried to thwart him every step of the way. In death, he would not lie to himself. Leading his own faction of Ñoldor as if it meant nothing and claiming that Fëanor cared more about his lost treasure than about their father had not been wise choices. In Fëanor's place, he wouldn't have trusted Finwë Ñolofinwë. 

He wasn't sure how long he walked. If someone had asked him, he would have said he had been walking for years, but surely it couldn't be that long. The darkness seemed to shift at times, but even if he sensed the change and tried to get close to it he found himself enveloped again. He had no idea when he halted, or how long he spent standing still. 

“Ñolofinwë...are you lost?” 

The voice made him start: Fëanor's unmistakable, deep rich voice.

Fingolfin's eyes darted around, hoping to catch even a glimpse of his brother. Even a fleeting shadow of him would have been a blessing in this situation. 

The darkness was unchanged, but he could now make out tiny red lights hovering at a distance from him.

“Where are you...brother?” he called back.

“I'm here.”

Fëanor's voice could come from any direction, clear and unhindered. There was no malice in it that Fingolfin could detect, no trace of scorn. Fëanor sounded, rather, almost joyful. Fingolfin tried to recall the last time he had seen Fëanor happy. He searched his mind, and found nothing. He started to wonder if Fëanor had ever been truly happy – carefree – in his presence.

“Show yourself...please.”

“You did a brave thing, Ñolofinwë, though foolish. Why were you so keen to die?”

“I don't know,” Fingolfin replied, and a pang of guilt assailed him. He hadn't been brave: he had been a coward. “Are– are these the Halls of the dead?”

“They are.”

“Then...what happened here?”

“As you recall, I made the Silmarils with light.”

Fingolfin nodded automatically, then it occurred to him that Fëanor very likely could not see him, just as he couldn't see Fëanor. His reaction to the question was a very obvious one at any rate, Fëanor didn't really need to ask.

“When I arrived in these Halls of the Dead, I had only darkness and my own thoughts. I found it disagreeable at first. Soon, however, I started to wonder if I could make something out of that.”

“What have you made?”

“Are you blind? It's all around you! See, how immaculate and flawless this darkness is? No light of the Valar can pierce it, no radiance can dissipate it. A darkness as unbreakable as the shell of my Silmarils. A work greater than the Silmarils. This I will share. Everybody craved my light, but that I had not made to share. This is my gift to Arda.”

Fingolfin was seized by dread. “Where is Námo?”

“Outside, I suppose.” There was a peal of laughter that couldn't possibly be Fëanor's. The tiny red lights quivered. “I do not keep prisoners. He found my darkness did not agree with him. Ironic, isn't it? I assume he was able to find his way out of here. You too, Ñolofinwë. You too may leave freely.”

“What purpose does your darkness have?” 

“As I said, my darkness will spread over the whole world, and by so doing it will erase everything else.”

“But that is madness!” Fingolfin protested before he could catch himself. 

“Is it? Think about it, Ñolofinwë.” Instead of being angered by his outburst, Fëanor sounded indulgent. Fëanor was talking to him as to a clueless baby brother. In a way, Fingolfin was nothing more than that a confused child now. “No loss, no longing, no torment. No shadows to mar the perfection of the Valar's creations. Nothing for the Valar or Morgoth to contend over. Everyone will be the same. Darkness will make everything whole again.”

“But, brother, that is not the way we are supposed to exist,” said Fingolfin, more evenly. 

“And this is? Condemned to failure, beset by grief, forever divided?

“Of course it isn't, but erasing everything isn't the way to amend that. You can't even be sure that this is what everybody else wants, or needs.”

“Why should they refuse such a generous gift? It is for their own good, too.”

“What will happen to people who have bodies?”

“My mother has been doing fine so far. Father traded his own life with Námo to allow her to be re-embodied, you see, and she's been abiding with us all this time, with no damage to her physical form.” Fëanor gave Fingolfin enough time to process the information, then resumed in his indulgently lecturing tone. “How do _you_ know that people will be able to choose a better fate for them, at the end?”

“There must be a second chance, for everybody.”

“Námo told me he would never let me leave here.” 

“The Second Music –”

“Can you be sure the Second Music will indeed happen as the Valar say and that it will gift us with a chance at a better life? You can't, Ñolofinwë, and I will not sit still and wait thousands of years to find out.”

Fingolfin couldn't contradict his brother. He had only words of hope to offer and words of hope would mean nothing to Fëanor. Fëanor would never believe being told that things would turn out well for him. The Valar had sworn that they wouldn't. The Valar had claimed he was marred since birth. Fingolfin himself had often whispered the word while looking at Fëanor askance, when Morgoth's lies turned his own pride against his older brother. Morgoth had had an easy time of it.

“Here, if you want out.”

Fingolfin was wrenched from his mind. His palm spread and turned upwards of its own accord. Something hot fell into it. He jerked his hand forward and almost dropped it. One of those tiny red lights rolled around in the cupped hollow of his hand when he looked down. 

“That will help you find your way out of here. Be happy. Send my greetings to your wife. ...Or not. I doubt she would be pleased by that.” 

“Why?”

“You were always such a stubborn fool. You never believed I cared about you. But I did, I did.”

Fingolfin didn't ask if that was still the case. “I don't _want_ to leave. Where is Father?”

“You want to meet him? Your daughter is with us too.”

“I want to meet them both.”

“Then I will take you to them.”

Fëanor suddenly appeared at his side. Fingolfin managed not to jump in fear by some miracle. He did hold his breath as he turned to towards his brother, who claimed to always have loved him. Fëanor was at least two heads taller than him now. It was strange to have to tilt his head up to look at him. His face was Fëanor's true face, but blurry at the edges, like the rest of him was. His spirit burned black, a writhing mass of black flames that only a thin sliver of silver set apart from the darkness. His eyes shone like the Silmarils themselves. The little red lights Fingolfin had seen were attached to a large headpiece he wore, or maybe it was things growing out of his head, like a massive set of horns. 

Fëanor extended a large, claw-like hand towards him.

Fingolfin hesitated, then awkwardly extended his puny transparent arm. His hand drowned in Fëanor's hand. Fëanor wrapped his fingers around it, like a ribbon folded many times over, engulfing it completely. Fingolfin wondered if he could ever take his hand away. He couldn't even be sure his own hand existed anymore. 

“Father will be glad to meet you...and dismayed, of course. See what I meant before? It's a terrible choice, a losing battle between wishing against all hope that your child stays alive and your own crushing desire to meet them again. You too. You shouldn't have to choose between staying with your father or your mother, between meeting your daughter or your wife, and between going out to live and waiting here for your sons.”

“My sons?”

“They will die, of course. Like mine. They were cursed to.”

Again Fingolfin was assaulted by guilt for leaving Fingon alone to rule a broken people, no doubt further dispirited by his suicide. He had failed. He had failed as a king, and as a father, and he had failed as a brother. 

The darkness suddenly shifted. The red lights moved too, turned and _looked_ into different directions. Fingolfin closed his fist around the one in his hand, even as he realised that it wasn't a light, a little lamp. Of course it wasn't a light. Fëanor had all but said it. His hand flinched. The eye pulsated against it, in its element. It gazed through his palm and Fëanor's hand and through all that unfathomable blackness. Of course Fëanor would want to be in complete control of his darkness.

“Why is my daughter still here?” he asked, wondering at the same time if the eye couldn't pry his thoughts.

“Because her son will die too.”

Fingolfin halted. “Fëanáro. What have we done?”

“We? We cared.” Fëanor looked down at him with eyes full of understanding. “We cared too much.”

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this could be interpreted as a different take on the "everlasting darkness" clause of the Oath. Canon events still happen as they should but the aftermath will of course diverge.


End file.
